Following Microsoft’s Ability Summit, Steven wants to talk about Project Tokyo. But, does 3D positional audio have any real practical use for accessibility or is it purely for entertainment. While Steven & Tim imagine this being used with other virtual reality technologies to enable a new level of online shopping, Shaun is unconvinced.

Next, with the latest Windows 10 update bringing improvements to Narrator, just how close is it to replacing established screen readers such as Jaws or NVDA and just what are the improvements?

Finally, we have a voicemail from Tiffany with her experience of the WeWALK smart cane and her tips on buying an Apple Watch.

Promising a smaller, more durable hardware design, including a louder speaker, the Special Edition should ship in July.

In a promotional email, they also list some updated software features that may be useful during the current Corona pandemic.

With the social distance feature, visually impaired people will be able to keep the necessary distance recommended by health organizations with other people and if anyone comes near them, WeWALK will warn the users via vibration.

We improved our navigation feature to help our users be fully independent in their social lives. They will be able to use the clockwise navigation feature which makes their navigation experience easier and simpler.

With a new feature, We WALK can now notify the users about places around them such as cafes, restaurants, and shops as they walk by. They will no longer need to ask other people for directions to a cafe or restaurant while they are out, they will be able to find them on their own.

Before, visually impaired people had to always ask someone for directions to the nearest bus stop or about the approaching buses to a bus stop. With the latest improvements added to the public transportation feature available in more than 1500 cities around the world, our users can now access the nearest stops to their location and accurate bus timetables, as well as find out how many stops are left to their destination.

We would assume that these software features will be available to all WeWALK smart cane owners through a simple app update.

In episode 136 of Double Tap, Tim Schwartz tells us about the new Special Edition cane which leads into a discussion on just how useful smart tech actually is when it comes to mobility.

Listen to the Audio Below:

http://doubletap.online/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/136-Steven-Shaun-Tim-WeWalk-Cane.mp3
]]>https://doubletap.online/wewalk-smart-cane-special-edition/feed02287Double Tap Canada Podcast Episode 136: Apple Glass Leaks, New Smart Cane Option & LED Light Lovehttps://doubletap.online/double-tap-canada-podcast-episode-136-apple-glass-leaks-new-smart-cane-option-led-light-love
https://doubletap.online/double-tap-canada-podcast-episode-136-apple-glass-leaks-new-smart-cane-option-led-light-love#respondFri, 29 May 2020 12:44:03 +0000http://doubletap.online/?p=2282Continue Reading Double Tap Canada Podcast Episode 136: Apple Glass Leaks, New Smart Cane Option & LED Light Love]]>This week’s Double Tap kicks off with Steven telling us all about his new home studio and his new love for LED light strips. But, just as with his big screen TV, surely, there can be no reason for a visually impaired person to care about smart lighting, or is there?

Next, Steven invites us all to play his exciting new game, “What’s in The Box”. Yes, he’s been buying again, this time it’s a new iPad Pro 11, but did he go all in and get the touchpad enabled Magic keyboard too?

It’s then on to a discussion of the recent rumours regarding the much-anticipated smart glasses from Apple. With no built-in speakers and no camera, is there anything here of interest, or use, to the visually impaired? And why does Shaun want them to be more expensive?

Tim then tells us of a new version of the WeWalk smart cane that is available for pre-order. The WeWalk special edition promises to be more durable and offer more features. But are the team yet convinced of the benefits of smart tech when it comes to mobility.

The show wraps up with a High Speed How To on removing programs in Windows and a strange insight into Stevens childhood…

]]>https://doubletap.online/double-tap-canada-podcast-episode-136-apple-glass-leaks-new-smart-cane-option-led-light-love/feed02282The Future of Specialized Techhttps://doubletap.online/the-future-of-specialized-tech
https://doubletap.online/the-future-of-specialized-tech#respondWed, 27 May 2020 14:31:34 +0000http://doubletap.online/?p=2272Continue Reading The Future of Specialized Tech]]>Imagine a time, hopefully sometime in the not too distant future, where you never have to ask if a new piece of technology was accessible. A time where user interfaces, weather digital or physical, were always designed to be used by everyone. Some may argue that, that sort of universal accessibility is simply unachievable or impractical, but there’s no denying that, thanks to legislation and consumer pressure, accessibility is now something that every technology company has to think about when designing a product. But the truth is, there’s already been a time where we never had to ask that question. We don’t have to go too far back in time, where asking if a new device was accessible simply wasn’t necessary. The answer was always the same…

“No”, or even worse, “What’s accessibility?”

For anyone who had a disability there was only really one way to go. Specialized tech. Technology specifically designed to be used by someone who was blind, deaf, had a cognitive or motor impairment etc. Devices such as braille displays, CCTV, text-phones, hardware speech synths, embossers, blow switches, special keyboards etc played, and indeed still play, a massive part in enabling people with a disability to fulfil their potential or just make everyday tasks easier. But thankfully times have changed and as mainstream devices become more and more accessible, just what will happen to this still much needed, but admittedly, comparatively small sector of the technology sector?

In the audio below, Steven Scott, Tim Schwartz & Shelly Brisbin discuss the thorny question of just what is the future for specialized technology. There’s absolutely no question that it is still needed but with it’s usually high price tag and small market share, can these companies remain viable as accessibility becomes more mainstream?

Listen to the Audio Below:

http://doubletap.online/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/134-Steven-Shelly-Tim-Specialized-Tech.mp3
]]>https://doubletap.online/the-future-of-specialized-tech/feed02272Make Your Smart Speaker Smarter With Amazon Routineshttps://doubletap.online/make-your-smart-speaker-smarter-with-amazon-routines
https://doubletap.online/make-your-smart-speaker-smarter-with-amazon-routines#respondWed, 27 May 2020 14:22:41 +0000http://doubletap.online/?p=2267Continue Reading Make Your Smart Speaker Smarter With Amazon Routines]]>Whatever you want to call yourself, or indeed, whatever other people call you, be it nerd, geek or just someone who loves technology and gadgets, there’s a question you’ll be asked many, many times…

“What does it do?”

In the past, it was always easy to answer. Technology usually had 1 main use or purpose. So, for example, when your partner asked you “What does a Wi-Fi router do?”, the answer, “it beams the internet around the house” was enough. Simple. But now, things aren’t that easy. Modern devices can do lots of different things. I mean, try answering the question “What does a smartphone do?”. There’s not an easy, one line answer to that. I find myself saying things like “depends what you want to do with it” or “anything you like”, which, let’s be honest, aren’t really answers at all. This is also, most definitely, the case when it comes to smart speakers.

What Does A Smart Speaker Do?

It depends who you’re asking. For some, there a great way to listen to music, radio & podcasts. For others, a fantastic resource for getting answers and information, or playing games, or keeping in touch with relatives, or controlling your smart home, organising appointments, setting timers, keeping up with the latest news & weather, or just a cool alarm clock. The list goes on…

Sadly, I’m about to make this situation even worse. There’s a feature in both Amazon & Google smart speakers that allows you to create your own list of actions that will be performed whenever a certain trigger event occurs. Or, to put it simply, you can give your smart speaker a list of things to do and tell it when it should do it. They’re called Routines, and in the audio below, I’ll walk you through how to create them for the Amazon Echo.

Steven is so excited about his latest tech purchase, a 75 inch television, but will Shaun’s negativity ruin it for him? If your level of vision is so low, is there any advantages in a big screen tv at all?

Next, J Taylor tells us about his experience with the Samsung Gear VR headset and an video magnifier app that he’s been using recently. With it he’s been able to read departure boards in airports etc, but how does this mainstream solution compare to his E-Sight headset? This ties in nicely to a discussion on the future of specialized tech from last week’s show, and we hear from one listener with her thoughts on the topic.

Finally, Steven tells us of his new obsession. Truck driving. Don’t panic though, it’s a virtual truck! With only a Playstation, steering wheel and a large monitor strapped to his face, he spends many a happy hour hauling cargo across Europe. If this sounds good to you, he’ll let you know exactly what he’s using. I feel a blind convoy coming on…

]]>https://doubletap.online/double-tap-canada-podcast-episode-135-big-screen-debate-off-the-peg-tech-steven-goes-trucking-crazy/feed22270Nine Years of Global Accessibility Awareness; How Far Have We Come?https://doubletap.online/nine-years-of-global-accessibility-awareness-how-far-have-we-come
https://doubletap.online/nine-years-of-global-accessibility-awareness-how-far-have-we-come#respondThu, 21 May 2020 10:03:44 +0000http://doubletap.online/?p=2255Continue Reading Nine Years of Global Accessibility Awareness; How Far Have We Come?]]>Today, 21 May, is the 9th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and it’s worth looking briefly back over those years at how much has changed in the arena of accessibility, the tech that people with disabilities have access to, and the things that have remained largely unchanged.

What is accessibility and what is GAAD?

OK, let’s get the basics out of the way in case anyone is unfamiliar with these terms. ‘Accessibility’ can obviously mean whether you have access to something (like decent broadband, healthcare or those blue, knobbly Liquorice allsorts – anything really) but to many it only has one important meaning; whether or not you, as a disabled person, can use that website, buy that item online, message someone through that app or even complete your studies or do your job. It’s essential that software, websites and apps are coded in a certain way so that someone like me who is blind can still use them effectively.

By the way, ensuring your app or website is accessible has the added benefit of making it easier for everyone to use. Surprise, surprise – make it supremely usable for those with impairments and, “hey-presto!”, it’s fabulously easy for those using it in challenging environments too. If an app’s accessible for someone with low vision, then someone looking at a small sheet of shiny glass on a sunny day has a better chance of seeing it too. There are similar parallels for every other type of impairment but this article is going to be long enough already, so let’s plough on.

So GAAD is the day each year when organisations and individuals that are passionate about accessibility shout extra-loud. I’m going to be presenting in five different online events during the week – all in the name of GAAAD even though several aren’t on the day itself. There’s a lot of passion out there.

So what’s changed since GAAD became a thing?

Nine years is a long time. In dog-years that’s 63. In tech-years that’s more like a lifetime. A lot has changed that has had a direct impact on people with disabilities, whilst other things are still pretty much the same.

The main thing that’s changed is, of course, the tech in our hands – and, more recently, in our ears, on our faces and our wrists, and even in our bodies and up in the cloud and on and on. So much has changed in the tech we use each day. How do disabled people differ?

The mainstreaming of assistive tech

There was a time when, being blind, my tech was almost entirely of the specialist speaking sort.

A laptop would need a hardware card or dongle to do the talking. It was a long time after mobile phones were a thing before the extra software I’d need was available or affordable. In both cases, the talking hardware or software was easily equal to the cost of the device I wanted to access. Want an MP3 player? Either go specialist or do a lot of hit and miss guesswork with the buttons and menus. GPS to help me find my way? The same. I used to have a backpack full of specialist tech from talking note-takers to bar-code scanners – and each would have its own different batteries or charging cables – and all would gradually become out of date as mainstream tech marched onwards. Oh and all were hugely expensive. Did I mention that? Mortgage-payment scale expensive.

Enter the smartphone. The one single biggest change to have hit the tech world in the last nine years.

Now that backpack of eye-wateringly expensive specialist kit is superseded by one single, small smartphone that’s all of the above plus so much more. There’s an app (or 20) for taking notes (or editing spreadsheets or podcasts or PowerPoints), listening to music (or audio books or the radio or the latest, breaking news), for getting from A to B (or discovering what you’re passing on the way), to scan a bar code or read a letter or find your keys – and so on almost ad infinitum. Phones are affordable (you certainly don’t need the top of the range) and apps are either free or close to it. Goodbye several thousands of pounds worth of bulky purchases and hello phone.

Of course there will always be the need for specialist devices. Without Microsoft’s Xbox adaptive game controller that is much easier to use than any other standard option out there (and with the ability to connect several external switches that could help you fire with your feet, reload ammo with your elbow and blast the baddies with the blink of an eye) many thousands of disabled gamers wouldn’t be, er, gamers. They’d be frustrated game-watchers.

It’s going to get tougher for manufacturers of specialist gadgets (like talking notetakers and barcode scanners) to stay in the game. I think Microsoft will manage, but for the smaller players who are providing options for those who may not want a smartphone-centric solution – and who have the budget for it – they’ll need to get leaner and more competitive.

There’s a new, flourishing market of smartphone add-ons that fulfil much of the specialist market. Refreshable Braille displays, say, aren’t new, but they’re now gloriously liberated from a larger specialist device and pairable with a smartphone or computer of your choosing. Want to upgrade the brains? Easy. Buy a new phone and pair it to that in a second.

Can’t speak? Lost Voice Guy uses an iPad where once he would have needed to use a multi-£1000 specialist AAC device (I could clarify that acronym but it’s not pretty – oh, ok; alternative or augmentative communication device) to talk on his behalf. If he’d like a little more smarts to help him quickly build phrases or choose from a bank, then specialist app Proloquo2Go is what you need. Nice.

Need to dictate your documents? It’s also built-in. Need to control the whole device without touching it? That’s now built-in too (since iOS 13 and macOS 10.15).
I could go on and on. For a couple of hundred other examples, check out other articles on this website – or else where I usually write; www.abilitynet.org.uk.

What’s stayed the same or largely unchanged?

So smartphones (and more recently smartspeakers with their ease of use, affordability and all-round utility) and all that those devices have meant for people with disabilities is undoubtedly the biggest change since the advent of GAAD nine years ago. But some things are largely the same.

People.

People haven’t changed much of course. They’re using smartphones a lot these days (and bumping into large objects as they walk along without looking where they’re going – oh and I’ve got an app for that if you really want to get around without using your eyes) and their motivations and dreams haven’t changed much either. And it’s because of the fact that our dreams and motivations haven’t really changed, that the accessibility of websites also hasn’t really changed much in the last nine years.

We dream of a comfortable, care-free life; get the job done and move on to the next one or, preferably, go home/stop work for the day. Something like accessibility, which requires us to do things in a certain way and do a bit of checking as we go to ensure we’re doing it right is hard to fit into that dream of an easy life.

That’s where legislation comes in. A year before the advent of GAAD being a thing, the Equality Act (2010) came into effect. It became a legal requirement for everyone to make their products and services equally available (usable, accessible) to all. Along with the other motivations of wanting to do the right thing for everyone regardless of ability, you’d think this would be enough to push the needle towards a world where everything is accessible to all. Nope.

In the nine years since GAAD began, the percentage of websites that meet those requirements is still lamentably low – my reckoning is around the low-teens. So less than 20% of websites are going to be really usable by those with disabilities using their strange and wonderful array of assistive (or built-in) technologies. Also, as briefly discussed above, this means that those sites will suck for many accessing them on their phones on a sunny day, bumpy bus, noisy café or one-handed as they carry their coffee.

Luckily for us, however, apps are better. If there’s an app alternative to a website I’ll go for it every time. And in many cases it’s only the app where certain services live.
Why are apps often better? Well it’s a code thing. A web page is a wonderful free-for-all of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and JSON queries etc. Whilst there are indeed very detailed guidelines for getting it right, it certainly doesn’t happen by chance.

With apps, you’re building using the blocks that Apple and Google have given you. With Apple in particular, it’s actually quite hard to build an inaccessible app. You have to go off-piste (to mix up our metaphors with a frankly reckless attitude to consistency, here) and create your own, custom controls whilst also disregarding the prompts for layering on accessibility. Of course a shoot ’em up in iOS is going to be pretty much one large custom control (and so not much use to me as a blind person) but the vast majority of everyday apps are a dream for me to use and I’ll pick them every time. It’s not to say that the average website isn’t doable for disabled people, but there’s almost always frustration and quite often failure.

What has nine years of GAAD achieved?

There’s no doubt that accessibility has a much higher profile than it did before GAAD began. The likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have championed accessibility in almost all they do. Take a look at the Accessibility settings on your iPhone (now brought out from under General to the top level for all to see and wonder what’s in there) and you’ll see what an awesome job they’ve done. Do a mind-map of every setting on your iPhone and you’ll find that accessibility items take up well over half of them.
It’s amazing how far we’ve come GAAD will undoubtedly have played a part in this process.

It’s not the likes of Apple or Amazon we need to now win over, however. We need to convince, cajole or otherwise charm everyone who makes digital products or delivers digital services to embrace inclusion too.

Will you help?

]]>https://doubletap.online/nine-years-of-global-accessibility-awareness-how-far-have-we-come/feed02255Opinion: The Future of Tech is Brighthttps://doubletap.online/the-future-of-tech-is-bright
https://doubletap.online/the-future-of-tech-is-bright#respondWed, 20 May 2020 23:47:33 +0000http://doubletap.online/?p=2248Continue Reading Opinion: The Future of Tech is Bright]]>When I was eight years old, I pulled apart my mum’s new video recorder, much to her horror.

However, much to her delight I was able to put it back together again. That’s when she said my love affair with technology started.

Throughout my life, I was always interested in not just the way something worked, but how and why it worked the way it did. These days pulling apart an iPhone is a costly job and not worth the effort, however the software inside has become as interesting to me as the guts of that video recorder.

My first experience of accessible technology was the Franklin Talking Dictionary; it was the first thing given to me at High School back in 1992. By today’s standards, it’s a very simple piece of kit, but it was amazing to me because it was the first time I was ever able to use a dictionary without resorting to magnifiers or asking someone else to read for me. It helped throughout high school with my literacy and seeing it again at an RNIB Shop in Edinburgh recently really brought back the memories.

My next big tech adventure at high school was my Apple PowerBook 140. The school offered those of us with low vision the chance to trial these, and I suppose that is where the love affair with Apple started. I loved the big roller ball mouse and the hilariously funny voices like Fred and Bubbles. Making them say rude words during break always gave us a ton of fun.

Later I would go on to use the new colour PowerBook 540C which was a beautiful laptop most famously appeared in the movie Independence Day as the laptop that Jeff Goldblum uses to save Earth. Apple to the rescue as always, eh?

As I left school, and started my career, I moved on to using Windows PCs, and although I got on fine with them my heart was always in the fruit basket.

My vision was always what I called manageable. For many years I didn’t use a white cane or guide dog and in fact was often thought by others not to be visually impaired at all; as a young guy that suited me fine. However in 2017 all that changed when hypertension caused me to lose a considerable chunk of that vision. And it was at that point that the accessibility of technology was brought into sharp focus (no pun intended).

After returning to work I decided that it was time to make the leap and for the first time start to use a screen reader. As I work with Windows every day I decided JAWS had to be the answer.

By god, it was tough.

The first few weeks were hell. Trying to re-learn how everything worked without a screen was so challenging. However, the best advice I got from another blind person was to shut off the screen and just go for it blind! So I did… and after some time it paid off; I’m now able to use my PC without the screen (not that I can see it anyway to be honest) and I’m able to fully navigate my iPhone with VoiceOver. All of this took a lot of time and patience and I feel for anyone who has to go through this, but may I say what a difference it made to me in my life from a professional and personal point of view.

And my experience has taught me that accessibility is everywhere! From Microsoft PCs to Apple Macs and Chromebooks, to Amazon Echo devices and Google Nest devices all having their own magnification and screen reading capabilities, to new TVs featuring voice guidance software to help you find out what’s on TV, to even the humble washing machine getting an overhaul with features for the blind, we really are noticing that companies are making their products available to all of us.

But perhaps the most important part of all of this is that it isn’t being done to ‘be nice’; it’s all about making money… which is a good thing. I want as much choice as the next person and I want to be able to pay the same as the next person too. There will always be a market for specialist technology such as braille and magnification devices, which is fine, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of mainstream technology being available to those of us who want it.

So what about the future? Well, much like my mum’s old video recorder, I think it needs pulling apart.

I believe that the next logical step for companies to take is to dismantle the whole notion of accessibility in settings on their devices and instead offer those options as a way of personalising your product. From the size of your phone’s text to the loudness of the ringtone, to whether dark mode is the way you choose to look at the computer screen to whether you use Face ID or Touch ID to authenticate your device.

It’s time we started to include more of the world into the accessibility space and by offering those controls and options we build a society that doesn’t put itself into boxes. True inclusion is meant to mean inclusion of everyone, not inclusion at the risk of exclusion of some.

I believe however that the big tech giants are already on top of this, and the willingness to build so much accessibility and personalisation into today’s products can only mean a bright future for the blind and disabled community of tomorrow.

]]>https://doubletap.online/the-future-of-tech-is-bright/feed02248An Introduction to Assistive Techhttps://doubletap.online/an-introduction-to-assistive-tech
https://doubletap.online/an-introduction-to-assistive-tech#commentsWed, 20 May 2020 23:19:11 +0000http://doubletap.online/?p=2239Continue Reading An Introduction to Assistive Tech]]>As May 21st is Global Accessibility Awareness Day I will, just this once, admit that very occasionally, I do get totally confused by a piece of tech.

In fact, it is not unusual to find me fumbling around a new app or gadget, desperately tapping buttons, and grunting to myself like a confused, angry caveman. It doesn’t matter how many apps you’ve used in the past, or how many Wi-Fi routers you’ve installed for family and friends, when it comes to tech, and everything else for that matter, there’s always something new to learn.

So why am I confessing all this today? Well, that feeling of frustration, confusion and feeling just out of my depth is something that I, and many others I’m sure, struggled with for a long time when I started to lose my vision. Yes, that is from an emotional perspective, but what I am referring to is how I felt when trying to adjust to using technology as a visually impaired person. As someone who has always been a nerd, ever since I got my hands on a ZX81 in 1981, the thought of trying to use any computer when I could no longer see the screen properly or use a mouse just seemed impossible. So, I just gave up.

It was not until I walked into the computer building at the Royal National College for the Blind that I discovered a whole new type of technology, which enabled me to use a computer like anybody else. Braille displays, speech synthesizers, CCTV’s, embossers, screen magnifiers, all these things, that I had no idea even existed, changed my whole outlook on what was possible and what I could do.

Of course, as the rest of the Double Tap team will tell you, I am an old man. This was before the mainstream adoption of the internet and smartphones. Surely, it is different today. There are so many ways to get information now: you can Google it, ask your voice assistant, post on social media, join a forum or email list and more… And yes, that is true and there all fantastic resources. The only problem is of course that you do need access to some form of technology to do any of that. It so easy to fall into our own little bubbles, where we take it for granted that everyone has a smartphone, laptop or smart-speaker, and, moreover, even if they do, that they know how to use it in an accessible way. The truth is, we all need someone to point us in the right direction, to show us what options are available and where to start.

In this audio, I try to answer that question that we have all been asked at some point. How do I use a smartphone or computer if I am blind? I explain the concepts of screen readers, magnifiers and braille displays, hopefully in a jargon free, easy to understand way so that if you are new to the world of assistive tech, you will have a better idea of what’s available and where to start.